Mike Dickison’s blog of random tangents

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Film Crew Visits a Science Lab

The traditional lab graveyard for outdated software manuals.

Safety glasses on. Our blood-red lab coats mark us as visitors, and also as dangerous. Warning! Journalist! Film crew! Venomous! Do not touch!
I can tell the director is not happy with the equipment, which looks too old and battered. We turn a few whizzing and shaking devices on, but they’re so noisy they interfere with recording. The lab tech doesn’t seem keen to turn the noisy incubator off for some reason. Sadly there are no bubbling beakers of copper sulphate solution, but I’m told we can add those in post.
Everybody looks very uncomfortable trying to pipette in crisp white lab coats and ties. The reason scientists normally don’t wear ties is the danger of getting too close to a centrifuge and having your head yanked off.
We’re now posing a bearded middle-aged scientist with a Bunsen burner, because if we collect the full set of science clichés we can send away for a prize.
Real scientist action shots would involve Track Changes, tweaking PowerPoint, and emailing.
The scientist had to switch to light blue latex gloves, because they look prettier in the shot. If we’re setting up a shot with two scientists no power in the ’verse will stop me trying to get them both wearing blue gloves.